Archbishop Lenga responds to the Antipope on the Ancient Roman Rite | From RomeEXCLUSIVE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF TRANSCRIPT
P-Laudetur Jesus ChristusAL -In secula seculorum Amen.P-Readers and watchers of Abp are asking often recently if your can bring closer the problematic associated with Tridentine Mass. Maybe lets start from the question- “Why did the Archbishop start celebrating the Tridentine Mass?”
AL- Interesting question. I could even paraphrase it in a different way – “Why have I not, for so many years, celebrated Tridentine Mass? “ Because to answer today “Why it is celebrated today” one needs to answer the question “Why is it not celebrated ?”
The Tridentine Mass was established by Pope Pius V 450 years ago. While the Mass of Paul the VI was established over 50 years ago. And this new Mass of Paul VI actually damaged, almost to the roots, the power and spiritual value of Tridentine Mass, the virtues that were available to the people participating in this Holy Mass. The Tridentine Mass embraced centuries of the Church until the time it was finally formed by Pope Pius V, from different forms, places, traditions; done the best way.*
Whereas the Holy Mass of Paul the VI was all done in the worst way to damage what was the best. Because the Tridentine Mass was made as the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and all the gestures made during Tridentine Mass showing Christ Passion , also outfits, etc, it all speaks about the Passion of the Christ, of His Sacrifice. And the priest is also as a sacrifice who is performing bloodless sacrifice on the altar and leads people during the Holy Mass. In Tridentine Mass priest acts as “ alter Christus”, he doesn’t act as someone who entertains people, cheers them up at the altar, introduces some gestures, people are looking around each other, and are content not because they participate in the highest importance event; all is made shallow, the dialogues of the priest and the people, it is as if like on the stage, there are artists on the stage and those who watch them. And as if in watching the performance with some higher, psychological stuff, the people are focusing on the artist’s outfits and the circuмstances of the film and are not watching the higher ideas included there.
While the Tridentine Mass is this idea , this Sacrifice, where people and the priest are looking in the same direction- at the Cross. And the priest mainly celebrates the Mass in the silent form and people participate, can contemplate, instead of watching the priest, his mimics, gestures of his face and hands etc. They see him from the back, usually on the chasuble (the back of the liturgical outfit) is the Cross, Jesus’ Corpus, that inspires people to participate in this Sacrifice, to see and understand higher things, instead of the priest who is standing facing people and eclipses Jesus from being seen.
I was born during the time when the Council had not yet come, but when I grew up this Council was completed, when I was in the army and attended seminary as that Mass was there already. And those priests who taught me were already deprived of the power of Tridentine Mass as it was accepted this way. The Pope said “now is different “, the Council established it and everyone moved on to the whatever new. Why? Because every priest is obedient to his superiors, bishop and pope. The pope damaged all what he damaged, so we have until today what’s been damaged. In order to renew all and give up the new Mass of the pope Paul VI is quite difficult to do.
When I was celebrating almost all my life, for 40 years, the new Mass, of course I was putting all my faith there I had, I tried to celebrate best I could. There was no guitars during the Masses celebrated, and in Kazakhstan, that has never been the case when I was the parish priest there. I was celebrating it with the best devotion, piety inside me, for the people, as much as it was possible. But I didn’t know that there is a different relation, a different Holy Mass, that I just don’t know anything about. And when I started finding out about it was only when I was moved to Poland.
Before I heard something there being some sort of Tridentine Mass, no one talked about it in the Church, no one celebrated it in the Church and during Synods. Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI also wherever they went had Holy Masses on the public squares, not in the churches, with greetings, playing, enjoying, policemen, institutions etc, and you don’t know where’s a Mass and where is some show Mass-about. But when I started to think a bit and consider and look at what Tridentine Mass is, I saw that they robbed me of what they didn’t let me know. If I had known the Tridentine Mass earlier and seen the quality in it that I can see now (and then they have changed it into the cheap Paul the VI Mass), I would have certainly disagreed. That’s what I consider today. But if they robbed me of it without my knowledge and they didn’t let me know it, I just knew what I knew. So after the thinking about these things and hearing other people comments that they go to the Tridentine Mass and how it looks, and after reading of different things about Tridentine Mass, as much as I could, at the end of my life, I was allowed to be able to arrive at it: I can see that Mass was stolen and we can see the results of it all, what is going on in the Church today. Because the Mass of Paul the VI was prepared to protestantize the Church, protestants and Jєωs were participating (in its formation). Protestantising and Judaizing the Holy Mass instead of Catholicizing it. The Catholicizing of the Mass was thrown away and the other things were left. There. That’s why I changed.
I wasn’t celebrating The Tridentine Mass because I didn’t want to; not because I was saying “tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, etc”, but because I wasn’t given the opportunity to know it. I reckon today also many priests, because they were not given to know it, that they were robbed of it, not only in Poland but all over the world they were robbed of this Holy Mass, they are not celebrating it. And if they wanted to celebrate it , it is obstructed by the bishop, the Vatican, or their monastery. Even if some nun wants to go to the Tridentine Mass to feel more spiritual in her soul, the stupid superior nun forbids her to do participate, even if the pope doesn’t forbids it — “she’s wiser than the pope”. The dictate of the superiors that don’t have much idea of what was lost and stolen from us, they are the barriers and obstacle for those today’s ones who can detect with the heart and the soul that they are missing the real devotion, and the Tridentine Mass leads to it.
I would think that maybe I did it because I am expelled from all that structures — they exiled me from all their structures — I am a free bird, but I want to be free in Christ. So I have the altars where I have the Holy Mass as the bishop forbids me to have it in his diocese. Bishops in Poland have washed their hands of that. It’s on the “black list”. But this is not a problem; it’s possible to celebrate the Holy Mass somewhere in a cenacle, upstairs, hidden from Jєωs and all the persecutors, putting your nose up at all those barriers they put. Many priests today even if they would like to do something good are bound by those barriers and obstacles that are not coming only from the external world, but rather from the internal world of the Church. Bishops disturb them and they themselves don’t know and don’t want to know it (the Tridentine Mass). If they got to know all of it, if they had some scraps of faith, they maybe they would allow it. But if the leftovers of their faith are missing then everything is missing and it counts to them to be in the mainstream and to be liked by everyone. I don’t want to be in the mainstream, I have never been and will never be. So I am going to the roots, not to “where the leaves are only moving on the tree and it looks nice”. To me it is about deepening the Christ in my life and passing this deepening in my soul and my being on to those people that feel like me or to those I can learn from as they know more than me. That’s why the Tridentine Mass is such a road-sign” to me and is so important. I don’t impose it, but if someone feels that he has to do it and wants to do it – let him do it without asking the bishops, superiors; as they are bigger” than even today’s popes that “don’t meet the challenge”.
Amen.P-Thank you Arb.AL-Thanks be to God___________** Editor Note: The Missale Romanum of St. Pius V is the same Missale Curiale of a century before, which in turn was the Missale of the Franciscan Order, which St. Francis adopted from the private chapel of Pope Innocent III. From Innocent III to St. Pius V it did not undergo any substantive or formal changes.
Topic: ARCHBISHOP LENGA INTERVIEW ON THE LATIN MASS (Read 441 times)